Despite the slight fall from grace of their ship, the Stena Line service was still pretty good – certainly we could have no real complaints other than a fairly uninspired cooked full breakfast for £6.50 excluding drinks. Despite the gales which had preceded our crossings, which resulted in a 45 minute delay to departure on the outbound leg, we made up time en route and arrived only half an hour late, being pretty much on time by the return arrival in Wales.
After leaving the Stena Europe in the rain at Fishguard, we made the short drive south to Pembroke Dock, where we met up with Matt Davies for the next leg, on the Normandy (ex-Prinsessan Birgitta/St Nicholas/Stena Normandy). When we had seen her from the Stena Europe that morning as we left Ireland she had seemed set for a prompt departure pretty much on time, with her funnel emitting a great deal of smoke which completely enveloped Rosslare harbour. By the time we had arrived at the Welsh terminal however, the ship was still nowhere to be seen and after she did materialise was running so late that we did not finally embark until past the scheduled sailing time. Foot passengers are transported on and off the ship at either end via minibus but, despite this being pretty much the last vehicle loaded, the ship remained stubbornly on the berth. When, at last, she attempted to move off, the ship strained and struggled. Just as it finally seemed that we were on our way and the tug which had been called in to help moved back, the Normandy suddenly started drifting back towards the berth leaving those on the outside decks gasping with the tug rushing back in to rescue us once again.
To be fair to the ship, part of the reason for her tardiness was the fact that she was very much full of freight. However, the scheduled four and a half hour crossing took more like six and a half that evening and curiously no announcement was given in apology or explanation for this – it was simply a case of “Welcome on board the Normandy for our crossing to Rosslare – we are due to arrive at 2200”. Well, in fact the scheduled arrival time had actually been 2045 but this discrepancy was never mentioned. In any event it was not until 2315 that we finally made our way off the ship, but more of that later.
Looking around, the Normandy was in the midst of an in-service refit to the lower passenger decks (Decks 5 and 6) and dozens of Polish workmen were on board to carry out the work. These decks are largely comprised of windowless cabins which were installed on the upper vehicle deck by Sealink when they chartered the ship back in 1983, but also feature a cinema and rather unpleasant reclining seat lounges and a children’s play area. Despite being little short of a building site there were no signs to ward passengers away. In many areas the cabins had been completely stripped and in places the original green vehicle deck was once again exposed where the flooring had been removed. In the cabin areas beneath the vehicle decks on Deck 2 work appeared to be partially complete and, with new carpeting, wall and ceiling panels, these presented a completely different feel to the distinctly grim aspect of three years previously. Despite the refurbishment however no move has been made to add en-suite facilities to the Deck 2 cabins, something which was done on her sister when she was still in Scandinavian service in the 1980s.
In some other areas, the Normandy had also clearly been refurbished since 2004. This is particularly evident in the show lounge which has been considerably brightened up and, whilst still retaining most of its original design elements, is now a much more pleasant place to spend the crossing than it was in its previously run-down and rather grimy condition. Forward of this on Deck 7 the Coffee Dock to port (where the Stena Europe’s family lounge can be found) has been thoroughly refurbished and, despite the brickwork wallpaper (the naffest choice I’ve seen since the “library” of wallpaper books in the current Peter Wessel’s Admiralen restaurant), has scrubbed up pretty well. On the starboard side this ship, as with her sister, has the shop inboard of what was once a fairly elegant arcade; the ‘Europe’ has pleasant red sofa seating here but the Normandy has pairs of fixed seats around small tables interspersed with slot machines: not a particularly pleasant solution. Moving upstairs, the Renoir restaurant can be found in the location of Stena Plus on the 'Europe'. Whereas three years ago, this was open when the ship was serving on the Pembroke Dock run, it was now closed off and seemed in a pretty poor state, with tables lying on the floor, one of the sub-dividing partitions half collapsed with the only sign of food a strangely lonely potato sitting on one of the tables in the forward section. [Report continues on next page] |
